


Out Of Darkness

by Tametomo



Category: Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, My First Fanfic, One Shot, Rescue, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 16:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tametomo/pseuds/Tametomo
Summary: When her worst nightmare comes true, a tall stranger steps in...but he looks familiar.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've included a rape/non-con tag because the first couple of paragraphs might be slightly triggering for some, but this story is largely pretty PG!

This is it - the thing they warn you about. The reason whatever you wear is wrong somehow, the reason your friends call, "Text me when you get home!" as you disappear onto the nightbus.

Her thoughts moved slowly, like oil in water, as the back of her head made hard, cracking contact with the top of the iron railings. Weight against her, a hand on her windpipe; a moment of lucidity as she jammed her knee inaccurately toward the fucker's groin. No good, he seemed to loom larger and push harder. Heavy hands tore at her as panic flooded her, and hot fury - how dare he, how DARE he...

And then a painful jerk as something slammed into both of them and the fucker's fingers snatched at her neck before he crashed into the ground. There were two of them now. Her vision swam, blackened by stars as her breath returned in painful shreds. Through the white vision spots she saw a rolling tumble of mass and limbs, heard grunting, a yelp, a muffled howl, the dull thump of boot into clothed flesh. Words shouted that she couldn't make out. Her head didn't work.

She hunched over, willing the blood back into her head, trying to regain her sense of balance. Now through the confusion the mass halved, and half of it lurched away down the street. The newer half remained motionless at her feet as her sight pieced itself back together.

 

\---

 

The worst over, she allowed herself a moment to peer at her rescuer. He was on his knees, bent double, winded - hurt? Lean and rangy, short sandy hair that ruffled and tipped over the shadow of his face. Clothed unfussily in slim jeans and a dark peacoat. He lifted his head and glanced at her, his eyebrows furrowed upwards. Blue eyes pinned her stare.  
"Are you hurt?"  
She forgot herself and her speech, startled by his face. She knew him. How?  
Wolfish, high cheekbones, a thin mouth arranged along a straight line, a high forehead. A straight, hawkish nose and a deep furrow between the brows. His left cheek and eye were reddened and already visibly swollen in the lamplight, and a trickle of blood clung below his nose. A patrician face, handsome but with a distinct trace of severity. The worried eyebrows softened the effect somewhat.  
"Can you hear me? Did he hurt you?" She heard urgency in his voice.  
The man reached out and clutched the wall, hauling himself grimly to his feet. Upright, he towered over her. He leaned in and peered at her.  
"Hey -"  
"Sorry. I... no, I'm fine, I...he didn't. You stopped him." She tumbled over her words as she gathered her senses.  
"Lucky timing. Do you know him?" A note of wariness crept into his voice.  
"No!", she rushed, as he spoke. She spat the word, shaking her head.  
"Good," he muttered.  
Where did she know him from? Those eyes were familiar. His voice, low and a little gravelly, but clipped to suggest an expensive education.

Fresh blood appeared at his nostril, and he put a thumb to it, glancing at it briefly. She rooted in her pocket for a tissue and passed it to him wordlessly; he reached out his arm for it and recoiled suddenly as a sharp pain lanced his upper body.  
"Are you alright?" Guilt pinched her and she searched for a way to be useful. "I think you need to get to a doctor - you're hurt. There's a hospital just-"  
"No - it's not that bad. I'm alright." Leaning over slightly, he raised his eyes to her and smiled, wincing.  
"You don't look it... it obviously hurts," she protested.  
His voice sharpened, impatient and defensive. "It's fine - I've had worse. I'm just a bit bruised." He turned, took a step and froze as the pain caught him again. The air hissed through his teeth and he pressed his lips together as his hand moved instinctively to the side of his ribcage. He sagged against the wall and exhaled, the air shuddering slightly.  
She closed on him, dismayed by what she had caused. "Look, you're not... you need to see someone. Let me help. I can get you to the hospital-"  
"I'm not going to the hospital!", he exploded. She stared, and an awful silence hung between them.  
"Look... it's fine." His voice softened and lowered, seeing he had stung her. "I'd just rather not, alright? It'd do more harm than good."  
"...Why?" He was making no sense.  
He looked at her.  
"Really?"  
She looked at him for explanation, but none came.  
"Listen. It's okay. I live nearby. I'll just go home instead and clean myself up."  
"You can't even walk," she returned flatly.  
He steeled himself, and pushed himself off the wall, but clenched his eyes closed as the pain stopped him again. She hesitated, and put an arm around his waist.  
"Which way?"  
He looked sideways at her, first with apprehension, then resignation. He gestured with an upward nod of his chin, and slowly they started. Though slim, he was a clear foot taller than her and heavier than he looked, and his arm weighed on her shoulder. It would not be an easy walk. His waist felt solid and muscular and she tried to place her hand on his side impersonally, embarrassed at the sudden closeness.

 

\---

 

It was slow going, but as he had said, the man's house was just down the street. A handsome terraced Georgian townhouse shaded by one of the street's many plane trees, it was imposing and anonymous all at once; in a long, sloped tree-lined avenue of grand west London houses, it was part of the scenery. They climbed seven wearying steps to a wide black front door and he reached slowly into his inside pocket for his keys. The door creaked open and a great hallway stretched out ahead of them. An intricate pattern of antique black and white tiles covered the floor, and at the end of the hall moonlight gleamed through a window above a curved staircase.

The door thudded shut behind them, and they staggered across the hall to a room on the right. As he dimmed on the lights she saw an enormous grey corner sofa in the centre of a a very large, elegant but sparse living room, and they limped toward it. Releasing her he sank onto the sofa with relief, exhaling heavily. He leaned back fully and closed his eyes, savouring inertia for a few moments, while she perched beside him and looked around the room. It looked unlived in. The walls were white and a marble fireplace dominated the room. A Kandinsky painting she recognised hung above it, one of only a few spots of colour in the room. The floor gleamed with parquet, and an alcove beside the fireplace housed an antique globe mini bar. Above it and on the other side of the mantelpiece, densely packed bookshelves reached up to the ceiling. There was no television. On the other side of the room, a framed and signed poster of the film Heat occupied one white wall on its own, Robert de Niro and Al Pacino surveying the room and each other with surly expressions.

She looked down at him and that maddening feeling of familiarity returned. She had seen the twitch of that mouth and the reflection of that skin, taut across sharp bones, before. His navy shirt was open at the neck and his collarbone gleamed, brown skin damp in the still August air.

Perhaps he sensed her appraising him, and he opened his eyes, his gaze settling on her immediately. She started, and got to her feet.  
"Where's your bathroom?"  
"There's a washroom across the hall." He gestured at the door. She darted out, and found it - a door ajar in the hallway. A WC, a square sink and mirror, and a little cupboard, which she rooted around in quietly in the dim light from the hallway, digging out a bottle of TCP, some cotton wool and an empty toothjar which she filled with cold water.

 

\---

 

His eyes were closed again when she returned, and he opened and closed one eye drowsily as she sat down next to him.  
"Hold still."  
Now both eyes opened, and looked up at her. They were serious, even melancholic eyes; deep set, pale greeny-blue and lucid, the small pupils making them seem even lighter. Long downward sloping eyelashes added to their graveness. She soaked a pad first in cold water and carefully daubed at the blood that had dried above his mouth. He didn't move or say a word. She held a fresh pad to the mouth of the TCP bottle, and started to clean up the rest of his face. Abrasions peppered his skin; the worst was an angry scrape along his left cheekbone, and though his eyes stayed locked on her calmly, he hissed inward slightly as the TCP awoke it.

Satisfied that she had done what she could, she put the bottle down on the floor. For a moment he watched her puzzling at him, then broke the silence.  
"I'm glad you weren't hurt." That precise, clear, almost pedantic voice again. Déjà vu plagued her.  
"I'm sorry you were."  
A soft, rueful chuckle. "I'll live."  
"Where are you hurt?"  
"My shoulder, mainly. My ribs have felt better too."  
She twisted her mouth indecisively, then said, "if you're that funny about hospitals I could take a quick look."  
"I'm not funny about hospitals. I just didn't want to go."  
"Why not?"  
"Why do you think?" She didn't answer, and he continued, "Are you a doctor?"  
"No," she smiled. "I did a first aid course last month so I'm better than useless but I'm not about to take anyone's appendix out."  
"Good," he chuckled. "You leave my appendix alone." Almost imperceptibly his mouth twitched, and she returned a hesitant smile.  
"So shall I take a look?"  
"Why not?" he replied, and started to undo the buttons of his shirt. The pressure on his fingers seemed to transfer some discomfort to his shoulder and she fiddled unnecessarily with the lid of the TCP as he worked through the buttons awkwardly, at a loss for where to plant her gaze as the seconds dragged by. His shirt fell open and she caught her breath sharply. Already the bruises had come up aggressively. His chest and abdomen were a mass of bluish marks, punctuated by a few blackened, raw strokes where her attacker had kicked him sharply. The worst of these was actually a gash around which blood had congealed; his dark shirt hadn't betrayed the extent of the injury. His torso was well defined, his belly flat and hard, but the dark bruises picked out his ribs with painful, excessive clarity.  
"God..." Her voice trailed off.  
"It looks..." he glanced - "slightly worse than it feels."  
"You need Arnica or something for those bruises."  
"There's some in the bathroom - where you found the TCP."  
She got to her feet and padded to the bathroom. There it was - a battered little white tube buried behind a nearly empty bottle of mouthwash. As she turned, a picture framed in black caught her eye, and as she stared at it, her jaw hung open in mid-air.

 

\---

 

He wore a tuxedo with a black bowtie, his jacket buttoned, and grinned widely. A white pocket square peeked from his breast pocket. His hair looked a little darker, but neither that nor the neatly clipped goatee disguised that it was the same face. A small, dark haired woman in a black gown with a short fringe framing her eyes beamed beside him. In his hands he held up an award, a plinth topped with a gold sphere. She squinted at the engraving on the frame. "The Golden Globes 2017. Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television - Tom Hiddleston, The Night Manager". She stood, her mind blank, for a second, and wracked her mind over what to say when she returned. Or what not to say. She gave brief, serious thought to creeping out through the enormous front door and fleeing. She closed her eyes, squared her shoulders and resolved not to make a fool of herself.

Settling in front of him, she eased the shirt off his shoulders and arms cautiously. She swallowed as she surveyed his damaged skin, and reached again for the cotton pads. At times, as she cleaned the wounds, he held his breath, exhaling raggedly when she lifted the wet pad away.  
"What exactly happened?" he asked.  
"Before you got there?"  
"Mm."  
"I don't know, exactly. He came out of nowhere. I don't know if he'd been following me or just saw me and went for me. I thought he wanted my bag and then... I realised he wanted something else." She rushed these words, sickened as she thought about it. "I thought I was in real trouble, and then you showed up." Unconsciously her hand stilled, resting on his ribcage briefly, and a trickle of the antiseptic escaped the pad and ran down his skin. They were silent for a moment.

She withdrew her hand, and it shook as she tried to screw the bottle lid back in. No, NO, not now, she thought, as she pushed furiously against the urge to cry. She tried to squash the awful, swelling feeling back into nothing again. Her throat hurt. His hand closed over hers, and he squeezed it softly.  
"Hey." His voice was low and concerned. She breathed in and out, trying to slow her heartbeat and regain control of herself.  
"It's alright. It's over. He didn't hurt you. And I wouldn't have let him." She flicked her head up and looked at him. He kept hold of her hand, very still now.  
"I don't actually know your name," he remarked quietly.  
"Lisa." She noticed gratefully that her voice had steadied.  
"Lisa.... Lisa. I think you know mine though." Now he looked down, and his fingers turned hers over.  
She hesitated. "...Tom." Silence. "I saw the photo in your bathroom just now."  
"You really didn't know before?"  
"You looked familiar. I couldn't put my finger on it."  
He smiled slightly, his eyebrows inching upward. "And now you have." His eyes and voice were loaded with double meaning.  
"Now you see why I didn't want to go to the hospital."  
"In case people recognised you?"  
"Well... yes. Particularly on a Saturday night - a waiting room full of drunk people. Great. And journalists sometimes hang around hospitals. The last thing I need."  
He was quiet for a moment, then looked at her hard. "I'm sorry for shouting at you." His hand cupped her cheek and lingered for a moment, and he leaned toward her and kissed her mouth. She let him, not responding, just taking in the sensation of his mouth on hers. His lips were warm and dry, and tested hers softly. Then she reached a hand behind his neck and, kissing him hard, dug her fingers into the short, wavy hair that faded into the nape of his neck.

He allowed himself an instant's surrender, then holding her face in his hands he pushed her a little way away from him, and looked at her seriously.  
"Are you alright? ...With this?"  
She nodded and moved towards him again.  
"Hold on. What happened before... outside... I don't want to mess with your head. You were really shaken. I don't want to make you feel I've taken advantage of you."  
"Tom. It's okay. I'm okay." She took his hands in hers and kissed them one after the other. "As long as we don't go too quickly, I'll be fine."  
He shifted on the sofa, wincing in discomfort, and said ruefully, "I doubt I'm in a fit state to do anything quickly."  
She kissed him, buried her face in his neck, and murmured, "Lie down with me." He eased himself onto his side on the wide sofa and and she curled up beside him, their noses touching, two question marks examining each other.

 

\---

 

They woke up that way a few hours later, the moonlight still pealing in through the tall window at the end of the room, casting a silvery light over their legs. He shivered and Lisa reached for the throw draped over one end of the sofa, pulling it over them both. Tom inclined his head and dropped a kiss on her shoulder, pulling aside the neckline of her sweater to find a landing place. He delved his fingers into her hair and started to wind long strands, one at a time, around his fingers.

"Lisa. I need to ask something." His voice was thoughtful.  
"Go on."  
"I need to ask you not to talk to anyone about us, or this." He switched his gaze to her face, waiting for her reaction.  
"I wasn't going to." Lying on her side facing him, she shook her head.  
"Please don't take it the wrong way. It's not about you, it's more-"  
She interrupted him. "It's fine. It really is. Look... we met in a weird situation. I'm grateful for what you did, but I don't have any expectations. I realise your life is something else altogether - I know you have to be careful, and I know you probably don't get much free time -" she was climbing over her words now, desperate to get it all out before he said anything more - "we wouldn't have met at all if... that hadn't happened, so... I wasn't looking for this from you. I liked that we had it, and I'm not going to go back to my life and blab about you to people. It's private and you can rely on that. Please don't worry."

He tucked his head down for a moment, let out a sharp breath and looked at her. "Can I talk now?"  
She nodded, biting the inside of her lip. He looked...she couldn't tell. Less happy than before her garbled word-rush. His eyes looked like flint in the moonlight.  
His voice was terse now. "If you don't want to be here, that's fine." (Oh God - she had misjudged it, she had misread him completely.) He withdrew his arms from around her. "I don't want you to talk to people about me. I want you to stay. If you want to. But whether you stay or go, I don't want you to tell people. I've had enough of that; I can't have my relationships play out in public again. It fucks with my head and it fucks with my career. I'm not having my life under a microscope any more than it already is. I'm sorry if that sounds ruthless. But that's how it is. I want to wake up with you when the sun comes up, and I want to see what happens next, and I want no-one but you and me to know. So it's up to you if you can handle that. If you can't, or don't want it, I get it, and I don't blame you. But I can't change it."

He waited, looking at her, holding himself apart from her, his ultimatum hanging in the air. She propped herself up on one arm, looking down at him. Tilting her head, she looped her other hand around the back of his neck, leaned down over the side of his head and pressed a kiss fiercely into his hair. She remained there for a moment, repeating the kiss, then manoeuvred around to face him.  
"Deal." She stared back at him, and shrugged. "I'm fine with that. If this doesn't work out the last thing I need is for the world to know I got dropped by Tom Hiddleston."  
His brows rose but she continued. "Whatever this is or turns out to be, I don't need other people's interpretations of it. So it's yours and mine. No-one else gets a look in."  
He turned suddenly and pulled himself up above her, his arms locking her in. He pressed his face into hers, enclosing her completely. She pulled his head into her shoulder and held him there. Then as his mouth reached towards the hollow behind her ear, she stretched a hand down, skimming the central line down along his belly, and searched blindly for the button of his jeans.  
He seized her hand around the wrist, and froze her there. His voice was warm and hard in her ear.  
"Not yet. I mean it. It's too soon after what happened out there. I don't want your feelings for me tangled up with that."  
"Tom -" she resisted.  
"Not yet." He kissed her hard. "When we get to that I want to be the only thing on your mind. For now I just want this." He dropped down beside her, and pulled her into him. She turned to face him, appraising him for a moment, and burrowed her head into the faint haze of hair on his chest, watching the inky blue of the sky from the corner of her eye as the dawn light gradually took it over.


End file.
